Harry Potter and the Ring of Riddles
by Hollow Godric
Summary: Being the Boy Who Lived begins to intrude upon every aspect of Harry's life.
1. Chapter One: Weights and Neighbors

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
  
Chapter One- Weights and Neighbors  
  
Through the front window of number four, Privet Drive, three pairs of eyes stared from behind a narrowly parted curtain, mouths agape at the seemingly horrific scene beyond the parlor window.  
  
Across the street, a large banner had just been unfurled from the second story, emblazoned with the number "16." Any such banner would look odd in the presence of the perfectly manicured lawns and square homes of this suburban neighborhood, but this particular banner was strange all on its own.  
  
Dozens of tiny broomsticks made up the numeral one in the "16," and a long- maned lion, sitting on his haunches, legs curving together into a circle, formed the six. The spies in number four thought they saw a small golden ball on the banner as well, but every time they looked it was in a different place. It also seemed every now and then the lion would raise a paw to swat at the ball, and if they had been paying attention they would have noticed some of the brooms break away from their number to poke at the lion's back. The large cat had an uncomfortable look on his face.  
  
The possessed banner was the newest of several bizarre sights infesting this corner of Surrey over the last few days. Every other house had some sort of sign bearing the number sixteen, the words "Happy Birthday, Harry!" or both. There was a tent set up in one nearby garden that close inspection would have revealed didn't include nearly the appropriate number of poles, and the house next to it hosted a birthday sign with a picture that looked suspiciously like a dark haired, bespectacled boy behind the wheel of a flying Ford Anglia.  
  
Vernon Dursley was beside himself. Little more than a month ago, this had been a perfectly normal neighborhood, with perfectly normal houses and perfectly normal neighbors. Now, though...  
  
"It's all his fault!" Vernon roared to his wife Petunia and their son Dudley, though under his breath, as they were still peaking from behind the curtain. Just then, a loud rattling crash came from upstairs.  
  
"Him!" Vernon said to the ceiling, his entire body shaking with fury and his great walrus mustache seeming ready to pounce of his behalf. Suddenly, a blinding red flash and rumbling explosion lit the front window, and sent them scrambling behind the nearest furniture.  
  
"Sorry, test run!" came a voice from outside. And to add insult to injury, the phone rang, an event that had become far worse than random explosions in the street at the Dursley residence.  
  
"I'll get it," the Dursley's nephew, Harry Potter, called from upstairs.  
  
Harry came out from what until a month ago had been the Dursley's guest room, but was now Dudley's weight room. The weights were the Dursley's welcome home present to their still chubby son, who along with growing at least three inches over the last year had retained his title as Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast with such distinction that he had received attention from several professional trainers, something Uncle Vernon made common knowledge for other poor souls in the drilling industry.  
  
Dudley, however, had so far spent very little of the summer training. It seemed every time he tried to walk down the street, a pair of roller skates or a deep fissure in the concrete would appear mysteriously beneath his feet. The damage to his ankles could not be overestimated, as so many years keeping apart the gravitational pulls of the Earth and Dudley had made them very susceptible to injury.  
  
Because of his seemingly constant injuries, Dudley had been unable to use his gift, a fact his cousin had taken quick advantage of.  
  
Harry had sweat through the oversized tee shirt he wore (one of Dudley's old ones), and as he reached the hall table where the phone was kept, he noticed he was dripping on the floor. Oh well. He thought briefly about ringing out his sweaty shirt all over the carpet, before picking up the phone.  
  
"Hullo?"  
  
"Harry?" the voice on the other side asked in a whisper.  
  
"Ron? Speak up, I can barely hear you."  
  
"I can't. Fred's home."  
  
As Harry's best friend Ron Weasley's family was made up entirely of witches and wizards and had no need for a telephone, Ron was forced to Floo over to his twin brothers Fred and George's new flat in London to call Harry. This had the less than desirable side effect of letting the twins know whenever Harry was on the line, and one of them would invariably demand to speak to the Dursleys.  
  
Already this summer, they had managed to convince Aunt Petunia she had won a nationwide giveaway by a famous jewelry company (they sent her a toilet seat), Uncle Vernon to ship 200 drills to the address of a grade school teacher they had disliked in Ottery St. Catchpole (his boss had nearly taken it out of his paycheck), and Dudley, briefly, that Harry did in fact attend St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys (which is what his Aunt and Uncle told the neighbors), and had been slipping mickeys in Dudley's tea for years. For the last week they had been pitching Harry an idea that, to be effective, required extensive work on his part with a saw.  
  
Down the hall, Harry heard a number of rapid taps, which increased in tempo as if it had begun to hail.  
  
"Forget Fred," Harry said. "This is getting out of control, Ron."  
  
"I've heard. Mundungus said yesterday he could double his income this year with nothing but a big net in front of your window."  
  
Harry stretched the phone cord far enough to stick his head into his room. Outside his window were at least eight owls, each with a parcel of varying size and color tied to its legs. They were tapping on the window and bumping each other for position, like school children in the lunch line. Harry's snow white owl, Hedwig, gave him a withering look from her cage. Harry had had little for Hedwig to do this summer, and she was getting quite moody about his perceived neglect. He retreated back to the hallway under her hostile gaze.  
  
"Ron, they've started putting up signs in front of their houses! With my name on them!"  
  
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and Harry was fairly sure Ron had covered the phone so Harry couldn't hear him cackle. Sure enough, a few second later a slightly out of breath Ron returned.  
  
"Sorry, sorry, I, uh..."  
  
"It's not funny!"  
  
But Harry knew that under different circumstances, what was happening around him would be extremely funny. He heard another explosion outside, someone being angrily dubbed "prince of the freaks" downstairs, and sighed.  
  
This had not been a typical summer at number four Privet Drive.  
  
* * *  
  
Harry noticed immediately after he came back from Hogwarts. Whenever he went for a walk around the neighborhood, there was another moving truck being loaded. Harry heard his Uncle Vernon telling Aunt Petunia excitedly how several neighbors had received unsolicited offers for their homes so extravagant no one in their right mind could refuse.  
  
"People have finally taken notice of wonderful Little Whinging!" his uncle said in triumph. "You just wait, Petunia! One day someone's going to knock on our door, and we'll be moving to the country with Marge. Maybe with a leaky old barn for the boy."  
  
Harry thought it was odd that despite the moving trucks filing out of the area, he never actually saw any of the obviously well-to-do neighbors move in. They would just suddenly be there, poking their heads out their windows and staring at him as he walked down the street. But where the Dursley's old neighbors had regarded Harry in his far-too-large slacks and warped tee- shirts with contempt, the new neighbors seemed to be watching him with an interest which, while familiar, he had never experienced at his relative's home.  
  
The explanation became painfully obvious when the first neighbor family asked the Dursleys to tea. No more than twenty minutes after announcing loudly through the house that they were off, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley stormed back into the house wide-eyed and shaking. They froze when they saw Harry watching television in the family room, and for a moment he thought they had forgotten he was now allowed to watch it when they weren't around to be bothered.  
  
"Did you know about this?" Uncle Vernon said in a voice so threatening Harry was frightened of his uncle for the first time in years.  
  
"Did you? Did you invite them? Bring them here to make our lives even more miserable?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked in a guarded voice.  
  
"Here! Here! Here!" Uncle Vernon seemed unable to express what exactly was 'here.'  
  
"More of your kind!" Aunt Petunia said, and she started stomping her skinny leg in a way that made Harry think it would snap. "All the new neighbors...ARE YOUR KIND!"  
  
She fell into a chair like she'd been shot, and start pulling at her hair. Uncle Vernon stared at the fireplace as if it was the root of all his woes, and looked like he might attack it. Harry didn't know what to make of them.  
  
"How do you know? Are you sure?" he asked. He was surprised when Dudley spoke up.  
  
"They were asking for you! 'Oh, you didn't bring Harry? Boo hoo! Here, take him this pie I made him!'" Dudley seemed very upset about this new development, not least of all because two of his best friend's parents had sold their houses as well. From the purple outline around his mouth and smudges on his shirt, Harry gathered he didn't need to ask what happened to the pie.  
  
"But...why? Why are they here?" he asked, mainly to himself.  
  
"The freaks! The freaks!" Uncle Vernon said, attempting to jump up and down in rage but merely raising himself onto his toes a few inches. "The Freaks! Are Here! Because Of! YOU!"  
  
"These crazy people...they think you can protect them! These people- the Finnigans- they said your kind is moving here because you can protect them from...from somebody they didn't even know the name of, and the dead heaters!" Dudley said, and though he was quite winded from such a long speech he began laughing manically like it was the most insane thing he had ever heard. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia also shook off their rages long enough for a disbelieving chuckle, though his Aunt's laugh was obviously forced for her husband's benefit. Her eyes regarded Harry as if he was something she'd never seen before.  
  
Harry didn't notice this, though, as he slumped back onto the couch. They had simply misunderstood. It couldn't be true. Harry couldn't protect anyone...not even his godfather, not even himself from Voldemort. If anything, people were just in more danger if they were closer to him.  
  
"Finnigan," he said, recognition slowly dawning. "Did you say Finnigan?"  
  
"Yeah," Dudley said, his parents still unable to speak. "They had a son who said he was your friend."  
  
Seamus. So it was true. But Seamus's father was a Muggle. His mother hadn't even believed Harry last year. They were Irish, for Pete's sake! If people like them were moving to Little Whinging, because they thought he could protect them....  
  
"I knocked him on his arse when we left," Dudley added, but Harry was too far into his thoughts to hear him. This couldn't be happening.  
  
But it had happened, and now a month into the holiday the Dursleys were practically prisoners in their home. Uncle Vernon sprinted to his car every morning to head to work, and back into the house at the end of each day. Dudley was stuck actually hanging out inside the houses of his few remaining friends in the neighborhood, for aside from the dangers he now faced walking the streets, the new neighbor's children seemed to vanish entirely or give him odd, lingering burns in uncomfortable spots whenever he tried to bully them. For Aunt Petunia, the sole benefit was that her time spent craning her long neck over their fences, which once yielded little other than reproachful tales of unkempt gardens, now allowed her to hold Uncle Vernon and Dudley a captive audience each night as she spoke in hushed tones of jumpers hanging themselves on drying lines and formerly harmless trees swatting at passing birds.  
  
Harry himself wasn't spending much time around the new neighbors, either. Once he had processed the idea that they had moved to Privet Drive mainly because they expected him to fight any Death Eaters who showed up on their doorsteps, it began to infuriate him. Harry was still mourning Sirius, was still trying to deal with the knowledge of a prophecy that foretold he must one day either kill or be killed by Voldemort, was still a fifteen year old boy who wasn't allowed to do magic away from school. He had two guards following him around the clock, one from the Order of the Phoenix and now one from the Aurors. Yet he was supposed to protect them?  
  
He was only just beginning to tolerate the new neighbor's presence, and only because of near nightly phone conversations with Hermione and Ron insisting that it was better to have people behaving irrationally based on the truth than behaving irrationally based on a lie as they had last year (that was how Hermione put it. Ron kept telling him to "deal").  
  
It was no less than "Mad Eye" Moody who had suggested they rely on the telephone this summer, as it was much less likely Voldemort's Muggle-hating forces would be able to intercept their communications via phone than by owl or other wizarding methods. On the ride home from King's Cross, "Mad Eye" had apparated directly into the back of the Dursley's car and onto Dudley's lap to inform them that Harry would now be allowed to use the phone whenever he pleased, or else. Aside from several near accidents as Uncle Vernon briefly lost the ability to steer and scream at the same time, it had quickly become Harry's favorite memory involving the Dursleys.  
  
* * *  
  
"Oi, Harry, you still there? Harry?"  
  
"Sorry Ron, just zoned out for a minute," Harry said, careful to drip some of his sweat directly onto the hall table.  
  
"Right. Well, are you going to stand there and whine about your dozens of birthday presents, or are you going to open them?"  
  
"Okay, then, hold on."  
  
Harry put the phone down and went into his room. Apparently, a lot of people had decided it would be smart to get on Harry's good side after the events of a month ago. It wouldn't be his birthday for several hours, yet he had already received more than fifty gifts from people all over the country he had never met.  
  
Despite Hedwig's protests, he opened the window for the owls, some of which looked like they were beginning to tire. They swept into the room like locust, seeming to cover ever surface, and hooted noisily at Harry, hoping he would untie their package first so they could move to Hedwig's water bowl. The snowy owl read their minds and moved to the other side of her cage, haughtily turning towards the wall as if she hoped they would all be gone when she turned back.  
  
There were eight packages, each with a card of some kind attached. Harry scanned them quickly as he untied them to see if he recognized any of the writing, though he didn't expect he would. He saw one that instructed him to perform "Finite Incantatum" before opening. Harry figured it would be safer to open it outside when he was finally somewhere he could perform magic, as he imagined a shrinking spell had been used on it.  
  
Suddenly a ninth owl flew in the open window. It brought no package, but a thin yellow envelope with green writing which Harry tore into immediately. The letter inside was written in a narrow, looping scrawl he'd learned to recognize long before he knew to whom it belonged. He read it once and laughed before scrambling back into the hall and picking up the phone.  
  
"I'm dead!" he said happily. "I'm dead and it's all thanks to Trelawney!" Harry heard Ron spray his drink on the other side of the line and guffaw.  
  
"Trelawney? Dead? What? Trelawney?" Ron sputtered, and Harry heard a concerned female voice squeak, "What?"  
  
"No, no, no!" said Harry, trying hard to conceal his joy. "Just listen to this."  
  
Harry read the contents of the letter into the phone:  
  
"Mr. Potter,  
  
Professor Trelawney has just informed me of your most horrific and  
untimely death a few days ago. As such, you have fulfilled the terms  
of your lifetime ban and are hereby reinstated as a member of the  
Gryffindor House Quidditch team.  
  
Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
P.S. To be safe, I must insist you avoid Madagascar until I have  
another chat with my Divinations professor. Perhaps Maui as well. And  
Monaco."  
  
"Woooooo!" Ron yelled, forcing Harry to hold the phone away from his ear. "Hey, Ginny! Harry can play Quidditch this year!"  
  
Harry heard a female voice say something that sounded suspiciously like "duh" on Ron's end, though he couldn't make out what followed.  
  
"Okay, okay," Ron said. "Ginny says if you get a new broom you have to give it to her."  
  
"Sure I do," Harry said. "Say, Ron, has you-know-who been bothering her lately?"  
  
There was a distinct gasp on the other end of the line.  
  
"What do you mean? Did something happen I don't know about? Did you have a vision? Was it a snake?"  
  
It took Harry a few seconds to figure out why Ron had gotten so worked up, then he had to suppress a groan.  
  
"No, not Voldemort, you git (Harry heard another, lesser gasp). Skeeter! Has she been bothering Ginny any more?"  
  
Not long after Voldemort's return became public, the Daily Prophet had released a detailed story on what was being dubbed "The Battle of the Ministry." While it had missed several important details, like Sirius's death and exactly how Harry and five other Hogwarts students had come to be in the Department of Mysteries, the fact that Dumbledore dueled Voldemort and that Harry and his friends fought a dozen Death Eaters on their own was now common knowledge.  
  
With Harry's honesty no longer in doubt, the Prophet had decided to delve deeper into his years at Hogwarts, and it was not disappointed. It seemed to him there was a new story every other day with headlines like: "11-Year- Old Potter and Friends Fought Troll" or "Potter, Weasley Received Special Services Awards Second Year."  
  
As much as Harry hated the invasion of his privacy, he was pleased for the first few weeks that people around the wizarding world were learning that his friends had often been just as brave as he. There had even been a front page story two days ago about Hermione earning the first perfect O.W.L. score in thirty-five years. However, a story two weeks before reminded Harry there was a reason he ultimately despised reporters.  
  
Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff House Prefect Harry had become fairly good friends with over the last year, had given an interview to the Prophet's notoriously venomous (and recently rehired) reporter, Rita Skeeter. Ernie had told her all about Dumbledore's Army, a secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group Harry ran last year because the Ministry was preventing the teaching of practical defensive spells at Hogwarts.  
  
Harry wouldn't really have minded, except that Ernie mentioned that several of the groups members were people who had been directly affected by the Death Eaters in the past, such as Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Cho Chang (Ernie mentioned she had been the girlfriend of the now well-known martyr Cedric Diggory), and Ginny, who had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and briefly believed killed during her first year at Hogwarts.  
  
Rita Skeeter had taken a particular interest in Ginny's story, and it was fortunate very few people currently knew the details of her being possessed by the memory of a school-aged Voldemort. Harry knew well enough the type of damage Skeeter could and cheerfully would do to someone with the right information, and he hoped Ginny would be spared the experience.  
  
"Ginny isn't the one I'd be worried about," Ron said. "She's been going out of her way to step on every beetle she sees the last few days, and keeps talking about going into London for Muggle weapons the ministry can't detect."  
  
Harry heard an angry female voice on Ron's side and a very audible curse.  
  
"That's just gross," Ron said, shuddering. "Not right in the head, this one isn't."  
  
"I don't know where we went wrong with her!" Fred screamed in the background. Suddenly there was a huge explosion, and Harry heard Ron gasping for breath. Again, he sighed. War or no war, he was used to Fred and George.  
  
"Gummy Grenades (cough, cough). Still in development, apparently (cough, cough). Got to go, Harry. See (cough) you later."  
  
Sure, Harry thought. I'll see you three weeks later when Dumbledore finally lets me out of my cell.  
  
Dumbledore. Harry didn't think it was possible for one person to touch as many aspects of another's life as Dumbledore did his. He wondered what it would be like in a few years, when he was of age and could make his own decisions. Where would he live when no one could force him to come here ever again? For the past few years, he had never needed to wonder. He would have lived with Sirius.  
  
Deciding he'd had a long enough break, he went back into the old guest bedroom, only to find Uncle Vernon already there.  
  
"Wasn't her, was it?" he said, his eyes wide.  
  
"No," Harry said, "But I hope to hear from her tonight."  
  
Uncle Vernon closed his eyes and tried to pretend he hadn't heard him.  
  
"I hope you know we won't be taking you to the hospital if you hurt yourself in here dirtying Dudley's gift," he said for the twenty-ninth time this summer. "You'll just have to magic yourself over there, or call some of your twisted fan club to take you. WE will not lift a finger."  
  
As Uncle Vernon stormed out, Harry realized the new neighbors must be having more of an impact than he had imagined for his uncle to say the M word (magic) without flinching.  
  
Harry lay'd down on a bench with a metal bar perched on a rack directly above his head. There were balanced weights on either side, and Harry lifted the bar off the rack to resume the exercise he had been working on before the call. One. Two. He wondered darkly if he got tired and dropped the bar on his neck whether any of the Dursleys would bother keeping him from suffocating. Four. Five.  
  
The "she" Uncle Vernon had referred to was Harry's other best friends, Hermione Granger. Thanks to a few slight exaggerations by Harry, the Dursleys were under the impression it would be better to run straight into Voldemort's arms if Hermione was coming from the other way.  
  
A week or so after coming back from school, Harry had come down to breakfast, Uncle Vernon ranting about those "abnormal people." He lowered his voice when he noticed Harry, as if allowing him to hear them talking about the new neighbors would automatically invite them all to tea.  
  
Harry tuned him out, instead choosing to focus on Dudley, who appeared to have somehow toasted an entire loaf of bread, and was now cramming it into his mouth whole. He didn't notice a minute or two later when Uncle Vernon went quiet.  
  
"What's that, boy?" he asked, and yanked Harry's right hand in front of his face, giving no notice that the hand was attached to an arm attached to a boy.  
  
He was looking at the scar, "I must not tell lies," which Harry had received last year as punishment from Professor Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry of Magic spy at Hogwarts. Uncle Vernon released his hand, looking more pleased than Harry had ever seen him.  
  
"Explain that!" he said, his eyes twinkling. Harry felt his hate for Uncle Vernon rising, but he quickly calmed down. He had an idea.  
  
"Punishment from one of my favorite professors," Harry said sarcastically.  
  
Uncle Vernon slammed his hand on the table in victory. "I knew it! I knew it! Even your kind saw you for what you are, they did!" He was standing now, his chest puffed out, and seemed to be strutting in place. "Hmmph! Maybe I was wrong about that school of yours!"  
  
"Yeah, I really enjoyed her," Harry said, feigning disappointment. "A shame, really."  
  
"What's that?" Uncle Vernon wasn't actually listening to Harry, instead muttering to himself about "my kind of neighbor."  
  
"Well," Harry said. "When my friend Hermione found out about that, she wasn't very pleased. Not at all. Arranged to have that professor trampled to death by centaurs."  
  
Uncle Vernon turned white and eyed Harry's hand again, this time fearfully. Dudley seemed to have regurgitated several inches of the bread loaf, still whole as it hung out his mouth, and Aunt Petunia went straight to the back window as if expecting to find a host of centaurs there, grinding bones on the lawn.  
  
"She survived, of course," Harry said. "But Hermione is very persistent. That reporter she kidnapped..."  
  
The Dursleys hadn't answered the phone since.  
  
Harry smiled. That was the first time he'd felt like himself since....  
  
Eleven. Twelve. Harry re-racked the bar with little difficulty and sat up. He needed to add more weight, he decided, and slipped another metal plate on each side. Feeling bolder than was probably prudent, he added another plate on top of each of those, and lay back down.  
  
The weight was quite a bit more than he usually worked with. It kind of scared him, but that only made him feel more reckless. He lifted the bar and lowered it down to his chest.  
  
One. He remembered coming home from school with a better report card than Dudley when he was nine. Uncle Vernon hadn't let him out of his cupboard for two days, even to use the bathroom...  
  
Two. Dudley's friends had pinned his arms behind his back, and were holding him for Dudley to hit...  
  
Three. Malfoy was telling him that Cedric was just the first to die...  
  
Four. Snape was taunting Sirius, calling him a coward...  
  
Five. A headless gold statue was pushing him away from Voldemort, and he was too weak to resist, too small to keep his place in the fight...  
  
Six. He could feel his right hand aching, the scar threatening to open again as it did whenever he pushed too hard...  
  
Seven. Neville was screaming in pain, and Harry was just standing there...just standing there...  
  
Eight. Lupin was holding him, dragging him away from the dais when Sirius was just on the other side of that bloody veil...  
  
Nine. Sirius was falling towards the veil, a confused look on his face...  
  
Ten. Professor Trelawney was spinning over Dumbledore's pensive, that strange edge to her voice...  
  
Eleven. Twelve. Harry positioned the bar back into its rack, his arms and chest burning. He sat up and shook them out, hoping to avoid a cramp. He'd done several more than he'd expected.  
  
Dudley's welcome home gift had been the best thing to happen to Harry all summer. For the first time he didn't have to just take the Dursley's abuse, his nightmarish memories, his frustrations and sit on them throughout the summer. Every day since he'd been home, Harry spent hours working himself in the room, fantasizing about knocking Snape's lights out, beating Dudley in a boxing match, taking out Crabbe and Goyle by himself. Lestrange.  
  
It helped Harry to think straight, though that wasn't always a blessing. If he was honest with himself, he knew that things were soon going to get much worse, especially for him. Already he knew of so many people who had died because of Voldemort's efforts to kill him. How many more would die, people he cared about?  
  
The weights also gave him something non-maddening to do now that he could barely walk down the street in peace. Just because he understood his new neighbors were scared didn't mean he had to go have tea and give a reassuring hug to each of them, if he could avoid it.  
  
He'd gone to hang out with Seamus a few times, but it hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped, and lately he'd tried to keep his visits to a minimum. Granted, he liked Seamus, but he seemed to think the whole fighting Death Eaters thing was some cool adventure, and spent an awful lot more time talking about Lavender Brown than Harry cared to listen.  
  
Harry did learn from Seamus that he wasn't the only reason so many magical families had moved to Little Whinging. The Ministry's guides to self defense had suggested people move to areas highly populated by other wizards, to hopefully dissuade Voldemort from attacking places he would be outnumbered. Seamus said people were selling huge manors just to afford descent sized cottages in Hogsmeade.  
  
But of course Harry knew he was the only witch or wizard living in Little Whinging as of just a month or so ago. He might not be the reason they had all moved, but he was the reason they had moved here.  
  
They'd done a very poor job of covering up the fact that there would be "surprise" fireworks at midnight when his birthday officially started. He was also fairly sure they were throwing a party at Mrs. Figgs' house at the same time, and quite possibly expected him to come. He supposed if he stayed in the house the rest of the evening he'd be safe, as no one had yet approached him about it. Please, oh please don't let the fireworks spell out an invitation, he thought.  
  
Harry flipped through the book that had accompanied the weight machine, looking for other exercises. So far, he'd been surprised how readily his skinny frame adapted to the shock of being forced to such extremes every day, and if he did say so himself, it suited him. When he looked in the mirror, he was already starting to see more of the man his haunted eyes seemed to belong to.  
  
Done working out a little more than an hour later, he sat down at his desk to write. Harry felt stupid that people he had never met were sending him birthday presents, but he knew it would be rude to send them back. Instead, he took Hermione's advice and was writing thank you letters for each one, though in the back of his mind he feared he might be encouraging this sort of thing again next year.  
  
Awhile later, Harry heard a kind of snarfle that sounded like a hippo sitting on a dozen balloons, and found Dudley filling his doorway. He turned back to his letter to Darla Wickham, a little girl who had sent him several boxes of Chocolate Frogs that had melted along the way, and merely nodded and yawned when he opened them.  
  
"What?" he asked when he noticed Dudley was still standing there a minute later.  
  
"That Hermione girl who keeps calling?" Dudley said, sounding just as uncomfortable as his parents did when a subject related to Harry was brought up.  
  
"Yeah?" Harry said.  
  
"Was she at the train station?" Dudley asked. He seemed very tense, as if he was afraid of the answer.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, happy that Dudley might be worried Hermione was planning to do something terrible to him at her next opportunity.  
  
"The one with the curly hair?" Dudley asked with baited breath.  
  
"Yep," Harry said. It struck him as odd that Dudley, who already had a pitiful memory before he'd started boxing, would remember such a particular detail.  
  
"Why'd you ask?"  
  
Harry turned just in time to see what he imagined was the rear third of Dudley vanish from view, and a few seconds later he heard a door slam closed.  
  
Harry wrote out nearly a dozen more thank you letters, towards the end of which he began blurring his words together and jumping at noises from around the house he hoped might be the telephone.  
  
Finally he called it quits and started to head downstairs for dinner, only to hear the front door open, the awkward clop-clop of three pairs of feet, and the Dursley's car pulling out of the driveway at an inadvisable speed. Sighing, he grabbed a few of Darla Wickham's Chocolate Slugs out from under his loose floor board for dinner, but having nothing but sweets quickly upset his stomach. Hoping a nap would make him feel better, Harry fell over onto his bed, still wearing his workout clothes, and slipped to sleep in seconds.  
  
He was back at his desk, writing a thank you to Bellatrix Lestrange for the shiny axe she had sent him for Christmas. He tried to give the letter to Hedwig, but she kept yelling at him with Hermione's voice to close his mind or it was back to the cupboard for him! He'd deliver it himself, he decided, but no matter where he looked he couldn't find his invisibility socks...  
  
He awoke with a start to the sound of raised voices downstairs mixed with explosions outside. Harry jumped up towards the window to find spectacular wizarding fireworks dancing over the house across the street. The sky they lit was pitch black.  
  
"Leave it to you to sleep through your own surprise party."  
  
He turned to find a smirking Ron leaning against his door frame. 


	2. Chapter Twp: Surprise

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
  
Chapter Two: Surprise  
  
Ron looked at Harry as if showing up in his room in the dead of night was quite ordinary. If Harry had thought about it, he would have realized it was, as he shared a dorm with Ron ten months out of the year, but there was absolutely no connection in Harry's mind between this room and that.  
  
"What are you doing here? How did you get in? Did your dad blow up the living room again?" Harry was unable to hide his excitement. He'd had rather low expectations for the day, knowing any party the new neighbors dragged him to would likely be little more than a bunch of strangers staring at him. "Who else is here? Is Hermione? Are your parents? Is..."  
  
"Shut it, would you?" Ron said, chuckling. "Bloody hell, you'd think I'd told Hermione about a surprise exam! And yes, she's at that batty Figg lady's house, with...um, well, pretty much everybody you know. Mum wanted it to be a surprise party, so when you go downstairs, just act like its normal for us to kidnap you to visit ex-babysitters in the dead of night."  
  
Harry, grinning like a fool, was so excited he didn't even say thank you or register the absurdity of Ron's last statement, but tried to go right out the door. Ron bodily stopped him, looking at him like he was an idiot.  
  
"Well, you can't go over there looking- er, and smelling- like you just stepped off the pitch," he said, surveying Harry suspiciously. "What have you been doing? You look...bigger."  
  
"My cousin got some weights as a present, and I've been using them," Harry said. The look on Ron's face confirmed his earlier decision not to try to explain Muggle workout equipment over the telephone. "Machines for exercising?" Ron still looked baffled. "Go look in the room by the stairs. On the left."  
  
Ron disappeared for a moment and Harry searched for a shirt that didn't make him look like an orphan wearing his fat cousin's clothes. He decided it was cool enough out to put on the jumper Mrs. Weasley had given him last Christmas. He took his shirt off just as Ron came back into the room, his eyes bulging.  
  
"Those things look like torture devices!" he said, awed. "Muggles use them on purpose?"  
  
"Yeah," Harry said. "They use them to build muscle."  
  
Ron looked at him even more suspiciously than before. "Well, it seems to have worked. You look...weird."  
  
"Thanks, mate," Harry answered sarcastically. He didn't own a pair of pants that really fit, so he just grabbed something clean. After washing up, he and Ron headed downstairs, only to find Fred and George on the bottom landing, preparing to creep up to do Merlin knew what to the Dursley's bedrooms. Though Harry asked, the twins insisted that plausible deniability would be to his advantage next summer and disappeared upstairs, having revealed nothing about their plot other than the maniacal "Bwahahahaha!" it inspired.  
  
Harry didn't even try to suppress his own laughter when he and Ron entered the parlor. The first person he saw was Mrs. Weasley, who seemed very upset about something. The second person he saw was also Mrs. Weasley, except with green hair and a serene smile on her face. Ginny was there as well, and though her face was the picture of innocence Harry could tell she was in on whatever the twins were up to. She giggled at him and nodded towards the Dursleys, who were huddled together in their night things, backed against the entirely undamaged fireplace.  
  
"All right, Tonks?" Harry said to the green haired Mrs. Weasley. She looked only slightly disappointed that he had figured her out so quickly.  
  
"Wotcher, Harry!" she said, bowing deeply, and when she came back up it was with the face and body of a woman in her early twenties, though the green hair remained.  
  
Harry heard his uncle and cousin gasp. Aunt Petunia saw nothing, as her head was buried in her husband's back, looking rather like an ostrich up to its neck in pudding. Dudley was shaking, his left hand on his backside and his tongue moving rapidly in his mouth, as if he didn't particularly trust his teeth.  
  
"Really, you're upsetting the Muggles!" Mrs. Weasley said to Tonks, in a tone that told Harry they'd been going back and forth for a while. "Harry dear, how are you?"  
  
She enveloped him in a hug, then pushed him out at arms length to inspect him. She seemed quite taken aback by his altered appearance.  
  
"Well," she said, turning to the Dursleys. "It seems you've managed to feed him properly this year."  
  
The look on Uncle Vernon's face was indignant, as if he had been accused of a horrific crime, but he wisely bit back his desire to refute the compliment.  
  
"We had better get along, Harry. Don't want to keep everyone, er, I mean- Mrs. Figg. Yes, Mrs. Figg waiting," Mrs. Weasley said, nodding to herself the whole time. Tonks rolled her eyes, and he could almost hear Ron do likewise. "We'll be back for your things after the, the visit, dear, and you'll be coming to stay with us for the rest of the summer."  
  
Harry let out a small 'whoop,' and was about to greet Ginny when he was rather loudly interrupted.  
  
"You most certainly will not be coming back here tonight!" Uncle Vernon said, outraged. "Our door will be locked to you, you and all the cretins walking the streets at such an hour!"  
  
"I greatly doubt that!" Mrs. Weasley bellowed, completely overpowering Tonks comment about locks not being an issue. "After all, you will be coming along as well!"  
  
Aunt Petunia's body seemed to wither, but her head failed to reappear, while Uncle Vernon shook his head violently while mouthed 'No!', though he failed to emit any articulate sound.  
  
"Now then," Mrs. Weasley said menacingly, as if lecturing to an unruly child she was struggling not to spank. "I expect you will be getting dressed and come over to Mrs. Figg's house. Don't dawdle, or we'll have to send someone back here to fetch you."  
  
Her smile as she spoke changed into something almost sinister as it reached her eyes, and Harry saw all protest deflate out of Uncle Vernon. He may have put on a brave face when confronted with Mr. Weasley, Moody and even Hagrid, but an angry Molly Weasley was something else altogether.  
  
They filed out just in time to see the grand finale of the fireworks, a flock of blinding white owls and brilliant red phoenixes engaged in a nearly hypnotic dance. Fred and George Apparated onto the lawn and gave Ron and Ginny the thumbs up, which resulted in a series of exceedingly enthusiastic and violent high-fives. He took this as an omen to hurry his pace away from a surely doomed number four Privet Drive.  
  
The others quickly caught up to Harry, though, as he slowed to study the cracked sidewalks he'd had little occasion to walk this summer, lit by the lingering ash of the fireworks. Quite a difference good publicity could make, he thought wryly, while trying to ignore a neighboring parent pointing him out to his children, like he was just an encore to the fireworks.  
  
As they crossed towards Mrs. Figg's side of Wisteria Walk, Harry, looking to finally say hello to Ginny, noticed she had stopped right in the middle of the road with a curious expression on her face. Harry stopped too, as did Ron and Tonks.  
  
"All right, Ginny?" Tonks asked, following her eyes to a purple Volkswagen beetle parked along the street.  
  
"I want that car!" she said, pointing at the Volkswagen. "This one's purple, Ron! It's perfect!"  
  
Ron groaned a long-suffering groan.  
  
"Every time she sees one of those Vault-Wagon things, she goes on like this," he explained to Harry and Tonks.  
  
Ginny looked highly affronted, though in a playful way. "I can't help that they put my initials on the cutest little car in the world," she said.  
  
This pronouncement seemed very odd to Harry. Ginny's initials were G.W., not V.W. He said as much, and was surprised when she looked rather hurt, then angry.  
  
"Ginny's a nickname," she said, walking again. "Doesn't take much to work it out, if you bother."  
  
For a moment Harry felt extremely stupid, especially when he turned to Ron for support and received a rather Hermione-esque "you-really-should-have- known-better" look. That feeling largely evaporated, though, in the face of nervousness as they approached Mrs. Figg's side fence and his first ever birthday party. The twins and Mrs. Weasley had hurried ahead of them, presumably to prepare everyone for Harry's arrival. Suddenly, a deranged voice filled the air.  
  
"ARTHUR WEASLEY, GET OUT OF THAT HOUSE THIS INSTANT!"  
  
The others groaned, and though they didn't explain, Harry understood perfectly. They reached the gate of Mrs. Figg's yard to find Mrs. Weasley waving a finger dangerously close to her husband's face, peppering him with comments about "why we never go into the village" and "the kind of person who just starts taking apart someone else's property, cannot believe...."  
  
Scattered shouts of "Surprise!" came as people noticed Harry's arrival, and Mr. Weasley got another earful for "ruining everything!" Harry wasn't paying attention, as he had been engulfed by a flying brown bush.  
  
"Harry! Happy Birthday!"  
  
Hermione hugged him tightly, though she quickly backed off, looking at him with surprise.  
  
"Goodness, Harry. You said you were working out every day, I never imagined..." Harry heard Tonks chuckle behind him, and noticed Ron had suddenly taken a very impatient expression.  
  
Behind Hermione, about forty people filled the modest yard, mostly members of the Order milling about in conversation.  
  
A large tent, which Harry noted only had poles holding up three of the four corners and none at the high point in the middle, covered most of the area. Massive torches in the corners of the yard provided the bulk of the light, though dozens of tiny blue-bell candles floated near the roof of the tent, giving it an eerie glow. There were picnic benches spread along the edges of the yard, as well as a large table which held an alarming number of presents. Not far from it stood a table with a spread of food, and Harry felt his empty stomach attempt to take over his feet.  
  
"We have all night to feast, Harry. First, there are a few people who wish a word with you."  
  
Harry turned to find Dumbledore, flanked by Sturgis Podmore and a grinning Charlie Weasley. Dumbledore was one of only a few people Harry noticed wearing wizarding robes, scarlet and gold with the Gryffindor lion on the front, like an expensive dress version of his own Quidditch attire.  
  
"All right, Harry?" Charlie said as they shook hands.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said. "What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to stay in Romania? To help, you know, recruit."  
  
"Alas, Harry, we need no longer worry about convincing other wizards of Voldemort's return," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "You have managed that quite nicely."  
  
"Besides," Charlie said, his voice raised pointedly, "As my two youngest siblings seem just as intent on mixing it up with Death Eaters as you, I figure the closer I am to home, the better."  
  
Charlie was still smiling as he said this, but the implications of his statement were not lost on Harry. As if on cue, Podmore stepped forward and offered his hand.  
  
"I'd just like to say thank you, Harry," he said. "Because of you and your friends, my conviction was overturned, and the Ministry is paying to have my wand restored."  
  
Harry shook Podmore's hand and nodded silently. He had hoped not to think tonight about the events at the Ministry, yet he'd already been reminded of it three times.  
  
"You, um, seem like you tolerated Azkaban okay," he said to Podmore. The older man smiled mirthlessly.  
  
"I just imagined what Moody would do to me when I came back without his best invisibility cloak," he said. "No joy in that, I tell you."  
  
Harry looked around the crowd, returning several smiles, but failed to locate Moody's mangled form.  
  
"I'm afraid, Harry, you won't be seeing Alastor tonight, unless you too can see through invisibility cloaks," Dumbledore said, chuckling. Harry heard an irritated grumble that seemed to come from nowhere.  
  
"Moody's on duty tonight," Charlie whispered to Harry, before barking into his ear, "Constant vigilance!"  
  
"Too right!" the irritated voice said. Harry saw Dumbledore's long mustache quiver. A moment later, he realized an even larger absence.  
  
"Professor, where is Hagrid?" he asked. Hagrid was the only person he'd ever celebrated his birthday with before this one, and one of the few who had always sent him a gift.  
  
"Hagrid is otherwise occupied by his duties at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, but his sudden frown belied that there was more to it. He seemed to be looking through Harry.  
  
"Well, don't hog the birthday boy all to yourself, Professor!" someone said, and Harry turned to face a smiling Remus Lupin.  
  
Harry had been concerned about Lupin throughout the summer. No one else had been as close to Sirius, and Harry worried his old professor might be coping poorly. On the contrary, though, Lupin looked better than Harry had ever seen him.  
  
"Indeed, Remus," Dumbledore said, "I think Harry would be very interested to hear about your new vocation."  
  
Harry was surprised to think Lupin had managed to land a job, considering his very public outing as a werewolf a few years ago. Nothing else, however, would explain the smart shirt and slacks he was wearing, obviously new.  
  
"I imagine he will be interested," Lupin said, "As I mostly have him to thank for it. Apparently, Harry, at your trial last year you informed Amelia Bones where you learned your Patronus. Thanks to you, I've been named head instructor of the Ministry's program to teach the charm to all magical families."  
  
Harry, who had had success teaching the Patronus Charm to the D.A. last year, was bursting to ask if he could help, when Ron interrupted their conversation by turning into a large potted plant. Fred and George high- fived.  
  
"Leafy Pot Lollipops! Our newest!" Fred said, as Ron rustled as though in a high wind. Completely ignoring them, Kingsley Shacklebolt came up and wished Harry a happy birthday, as did Dedalus Diggle, Hestia Jones and Seamus Finnigan, with his parents. Mrs. Figg appeared as well, and Harry was in the midst of awkwardly thanking her, not only for hosting the party but for her testimony before the Ministry last summer, when just as suddenly Ron turned back into a tall red-haired boy, though soaking wet. Apparently, Mr. Weasley had found Mrs. Figg's hose and seized the opportunity to water plant-Ron "the Muggle way!"  
  
The scene sent Dedalus Diggle into a laughing fit that reminded Harry of Luna Lovegood, his tall hat toppling off. After a few seconds George handed it back to him, and, when he put it back on, his head vanished. Fred and George were always the best at parties.  
  
Harry tried to use the distraction to make his way over to the food table, only to be blocked by a woman Harry recognized from many years ago as Doris Crockford, apparently a good friend of Emmeline Vance, who proceeded to shake his hand and wish him "The happiest of birthdays!" continuously until he was rescued by his head of house, Professor McGonagall. She walked with him over to the food spread, and Harry felt his anger rise slightly as he noted her continued use of a cane.  
  
"Well, Mr. Potter, you look to be in excellent shape for Quidditch this year," she said, looking at him approvingly as he piled food onto a plate. "Perhaps you'll even manage to complete all three games, for once. I daresay you and our five returning starters should make our side more than formidable."  
  
Harry would have agreed with her, but reconsidered. Professor McGonagall was not a woman you spoke to with your mouth full.  
  
"I have been exchanging owls with Miss Bell over the past few months concerning the team, and you might be surprised to learn she has no interest in the vacant Captaincy."  
  
Harry swallowed quickly, and his heart rate quickened in anticipation.  
  
"I thought you should be aware that she suggested Mr. Weasley would make a fine Captain, and I am inclined to agree with her. Your suspension, of course, makes your ineligible."  
  
Just as quickly, Harry felt himself deflate, stabs of jealousy overwhelming him. He had to look away from McGonagall. "Of course," he said. "Ron will do great." There was that awful false voice again. He could feel McGonagall eyeing him closely. She was silent for several seconds, and Harry was beginning to feel rather stupid, pouting under her close scrutiny.  
  
"I should also congratulate you on your O.W.L.S. performance, Mr. Potter. You will come by my office after the Welcome Feast? If you still hope to train as an Auror, that is."  
  
Harry knew this to be an instruction, not a request, and nodded quickly, still not looking at her.  
  
"An Auror, eh?"  
  
Kingsley Shacklebolt appeared next to Harry, his plate apparently charmed to accommodate an inhuman amount of food. "I don't know, Potter. The job takes a lot of nerve. How are you in a fight?"  
  
Shacklebolt laughed heartily to himself, and Harry relaxed slightly. He'd been waiting since his career advice session last year for someone to dash his hopes of becoming an Auror, but obviously Shacklebolt wouldn't be that person. He winked as he made for a table with Professor McGonagall, leaving Harry to his food and his thoughts.  
  
It didn't take him long to have his fill of either. Moving through the crowd, Harry found Ron, Ginny, and Seamus on the outskirts of a large group of overexcited women.  
  
"What's going on?" he asked.  
  
"Hermione," said Seamus, rolling his eyes.  
  
Mrs. Finnigan, Doris Crockford, Mrs. Figg, Hestia Jones and Emmeline Vance were peppering Hermione with questions about her O.W.L.S. score and a certain world-famous Quidditch player to whom she had been romantically linked. Ron looked at Harry like it was all his fault.  
  
"Soon, its going to be the Famous Harry Potter and the Famous Hermione Granger and that poor kid they hang around with," he said, sarcastically but with a hint of sadness. Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep in a searing comment about Weasley the Quidditch King and Captain to boot.  
  
"Poor kids," Ginny corrected him, "And don't act like you're getting ignored in all this," she said, turning to Harry and Seamus. "He got fan mail the other day."  
  
Ron brightened considerably.  
  
"Yeah, yeah!" he said. "Remember the one who sent you the picture last year, Harry?"  
  
Seamus's eyes widened fearfully. Harry had always wondered what happened to that photograph.  
  
After a minute, Harry bowed out of the conversation, suddenly in no mood to listen to Ron either complain or gloat. He noticed Mr. and Mrs. Granger standing close to where Hermione was unwillingly holding court. They looked both proud of the attention to her grades and hesitant, even annoyed at all the Viktor Krum talk. Behind the Grangers, Bill and Fleur Delacor were talking in embarrassingly close proximity. It didn't seem like a good time to say hello. Just then the side gate opened, and to Harry's horror the Dursleys appeared, walking in tight formation as if there were guards ushering them on with fireplace pokers. Dudley was carrying a purple umbrella, probably thinking of Hagrid's pink one and hoping it would help him fit in. Seamus's upper lip curled.  
  
Harry decided it wasn't going to be his job to introduce the Dursleys, and went over to where Fred and George were listening to a story from an animated Mundungus Fletcher.  
  
"What you 'ave to understand is, I'd spent most 'a the day at the Leaky, chatting with Tom and what. So there I am, 'ole pile of lasses robes, and I musta got confused on whether I'd 'ad my invisibility cloak on. So this bloke Warner from the MLE, what does 'e see 'cept some lasses robe floatin' in air, cause I'd put it on top of my cloak! And you know what 'e does? 'E comes and grabs the robe, right out the air, an inch from me face, and yells "'E musta gone this way!" And the whole lot of 'em went charging past me, shaking in me boots!"  
  
Harry laughed, but after a moment he realized he was the only one doing so. Fred and George were silently staring at something over Harry's shoulder. He turned and saw Aunt Petunia shockingly close to Ginny, a wild expression in her eyes.  
  
Harry moved towards them as fast as he could without running, though he had no idea what might be going on. Several people beat him there and separated the two of them, Mr. Weasley dragging Ginny away by the hand while Remus Lupin stepped in front of Aunt Petunia and said something to her in a voice too low for the rest of them to hear.  
  
"Her eyes, her eyes are wrong, but...but...." Aunt Petunia stared at Lupin desperately. "How? You can't do it, I know you can't! I didn't think...."  
  
Lupin moved very close to Aunt Petunia and seemed to be whispering to her. Several feet away, Uncle Vernon made a sound of protest but didn't move. He seemed to be just as shocked by his wife's behavior as everyone else.  
  
Aunt Petunia's eyes never left Ginny, but her expression slowly shifted from near panic to one of simple shock. She nodded at Lupin and staggered back over to her husband and son.  
  
"What on earth was that about?" Mr. Weasley asked, his tone more forceful than Harry was used to hearing from him.  
  
"Later," Lupin replied, though he too looked at Ginny with an odd expression before picking up his drink and, with a nod at Mr. Weasley, going into the house. Mr. Weasley looked hesitant to leave Ginny, but eventually followed. Ginny was returning Harry's aunt's gaze, a pitying expression on her face. George tried to ask her what happened, but Ginny brushed him off and slipped over to where Charlie was telling Mr. Finnigan about dragons. She looked rather shaken. The twins were staring at Harry as though he might understand what had just happened, but he could only shrug.  
  
Nearby, Hermione had somehow freed herself from the older women, and was talking to Tonks and Professor McGonagall. It seemed she was trying to learn how Tonks abilities were both similar to and different from the Animangus transformation. Professor McGonagall seemed as interested as Hermione, but Tonks, who was usually annoyingly curious, was tapping her feet and shifting nervously, as though she'd rather be anywhere else. Harry noticed her eyes keeping fairly steady track of Charlie, and they held a nervousness he'd never seen from her. He must have been watching her curiously for several minutes when he felt someone's shoulder brush up against him.  
  
"Hey, Harry. Picked up on that, have you?" Bill said, low enough that only Harry could hear him. Harry nodded slowly, prodding Bill to go on. "She was a year behind him. Had one of those all too public crushes." Bill was silent for a moment, then gave a protracted sigh. "This is probably the first time she's seen him in...years."  
  
"Well, why doesn't she go talk to him, then?" Harry asked. Bill shrugged.  
  
"You can only walk away from someone so many times before they stop coming after you, Harry."  
  
Before Harry had a chance to interpret this rather cryptic answer, Lupin and Mr. Weasley came back out of the house, Mr. Weasley looking appeased. He too shot a piteous expression over at Aunt Petunia, which boggled Harry. He'd always thought Mr. Wealsey despised the Dursleys as much as he did. What on earth was going on?  
  
"Well, Harry," Lupin said, taking him by the shoulder, "Now that you've had a bit to eat, I think its time you opened some presents."  
  
Lupin looked unusually excited, but Harry couldn't stop looking at his hand, still clasped on Harry's shoulder. It was the way Sirius used to greet him.  
  
Lupin must have noticed Harry's stare, because he removed his hand. Harry immediately felt stupid for letting something so slight bother him, and he tried to smile at Lupin to let him know he hadn't minded. Lupin nodded, seeming to understand.  
  
His old professor was about to announce that it was time to open presents, when he stopped, and elbowed Harry in the side.  
  
"Listen," he said, a grin starting over his face.  
  
"...And it's got four bedrooms, plenty of room for all of your, you know, things you people have, and the fireplace, works nicely for the...whatever you people use them for..."  
  
Uncle Vernon was talking to Dedalus Diggle, trying to convince him to buy number four, Privet Drive. As Harry walked away with Lupin, he thought he heard his Uncle offer Harry himself as a throw-in with the house. He laughed. Seamus had told him Dumbledore had spread word that he would be very upset with anyone foolish enough to make an offer for number four, so Harry knew Uncle Vernon had little hope of even giving the house away.  
  
"Attention, everyone, attention!" Lupin yelled, "It's time for Harry to open his gifts!"  
  
People started to move towards the table where the presents were piled, but many were elbowed out of the way by a charging Mrs. Figg.  
  
"Remus! We haven't had cake! Cake before presents! Cake...Before...Presents!"  
  
This seemed to be very important, and Lupin threw up his hands in acquiescence. Professor McGonagall waved her wand, and another table appeared. Bill and Charlie came through the crowd carrying a huge white cake, chocolate marble on the inside as displayed by a Ron's finger sized gash.  
  
Someone waved a wand, and sixteen candles appeared on the cake. Another wave, and they were lit. Suddenly, everyone was clearing their throats.  
  
Harry had always hated "Happy Birthday." It meant that Dudley had dozens of new toys he wasn't allowed to touch, and in just a week or so he'd be celebrating his own birthday by cooking breakfast and doing chores, gifted only with a disgusted sneer if he hazarded to mention what day it was. Lately, it meant owls from people far too far away.  
  
All the voices seemed to melt together as he looked around and saw them, smiling at him with no clue what they were really doing. He found himself blinking and swallowing furiously.  
  
"Harry, are you all right?" Hermione asked, putting a hand on his forearm. He nodded a bit too rapidly.  
  
"Sorry, yeah," he said in a small voice, concentrating on the cake. "Just, that was the first time anyone had sung me, you know, that song." Only the people standing close to Harry heard him, but their reaction was swift. The piteous looks towards Aunt Petunia from Lupin and Ginny dissolved into those of deepest loathing, and Mrs. Weasley appeared to be restraining herself from marching over and shouting at them. The Dursleys looked very nervous. Harry choked out a laugh as he imagined how Hagrid would have reacted.  
  
He looked up at Dumbledore, and immediately regretted it. His face was long and depressed, and his eyes seemed to be apologizing to Harry. A moment later, though, the customary twinkle had returned, like something funny had just occurred to him.  
  
"While we are in the singing mood," he said loudly, gathering everyone's attention, "It has been far too long since I have heard my personal favorite song. I wonder if a few of my current and former students might indulge their aging headmaster?"  
  
Fred and George's heads appeared over the crowd, smiling like they hadn't seen Dumbledore in months and he had brought them an especially dangerous present. Everyone Harry could see looked excited with the of exception Professor McGonagall, who Harry imagined had never been particularly taken with the song.  
  
"And a one, two, three..."  
  
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, Teach us something please..."  
  
Fred and George went with a yodel-in-the-round, each repeating what the other said until one got bored and moved to the next line. And Kinglsey Shacklebolt, it turned out, was quite the soprano. Someone not far from Harry settled on the tune of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Ginny topped them all, though, by singing a American Blues version, which Bill complimented nicely by making guitar noises with his mouth.  
  
"The "Dead flies and bits of fluff blues" indeed, Miss Weasley!" said a delighted Dumbledore as the last notes died out. Fleur looked absolutely scandalized.  
  
"All right, all right, time for presents already," said Tonks as she shoved hers into Harry's chest, the cake uncut and forgotten.  
  
Harry unwrapped what turned out to be a book, entitled "Ugly on the Inside: A Beginner's Guide to Personal Concealment." He barely had time to thank her before the next, a rather floppy package, was thrust upon him. He opened the wrapping, and out fell dozens of signed wizarding photographs of Gilderoy Lockhart. Harry turned sharply towards Ron, whose face looked innocent enough, but flushed ears betrayed him.  
  
Ron's real gift was a book on amateur Quidditch, which featured a picture of the Gryffindor Championship team from Harry's third year.  
  
Hermione and her parents bought Harry a pair of new glasses, which Hermione charmed to always be the perfect prescription for Harry. Harry's present from Hagrid was a new cage for Hedwig, though Hagrid's note was unusually short and didn't explain his absence.  
  
Within a few minutes, Harry began to think the pile of presents on the table was actually growing instead of shrinking (it did at one point, as about five owls arrived at once), and that he would be opening them all night. He felt a bit ridiculous opening gift after gift in front of so many people, especially Ron, but Dudley's jealous gaze kept him in a high spirit throughout.  
  
One gift, from Lupin, gave him pause. Inside what appeared to be an oversized jewelry box Harry found a small gold and silver ball. It took him a moment to realize the thin silver strips were actually wings...the wings of his own Golden Snitch. Normally, Harry would have been over the roof. Coming from Lupin, though, Harry had a feeling he was looking at something more than a piece of magical sporting equipment. The last time he had really talked to Lupin- in fact, the last time he had talked to Sirius- the topic was a memory Harry witnessed in Professor Snape's penseive, where his father had been playing with a Golden Snitch. He'd also been acting like a arrogant prat, and the experience had totally changed Harry's opinion of his father, not for the better.  
  
Harry couldn't decide how to take the gift. Was it a symbol of solidarity between Remus and Harry's father? A reminder to keep his ego in check? Something to keep his mind off the upcoming war? Was it supposed to remind him of Sirius? Harry smiled warily at his former Professor, but Lupin's pensive nod confirmed his suspicions. They would talk later.  
  
His dozens of other gifts included a dragon skin wand holster, a year's subscription to Quidditch Quarterly, a pair of socks, one lime green and one forest green (which could have only been from Dobby), and his first non- invisible cloak, from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. From Fred and George Harry received a useful book titled "Accio Ha-ha: The Best of Wizarding Humor," which apparently changed its content to reflect the funniest current jokes and stories. Mundungus Fletcher handed Harry something wrapped in a table cloth, which turned out to be a cauldron.  
  
Finally, the table was empty of unopened presents. Harry was going to suggest they finally cut the cake, as Ron was hovering over it looking desperate enough to cry, when a tawny owl flew into the yard, landing on the table next to the Dursleys. They quickly shuffled away as a unit and Dudley held his umbrella out in front of him like an epee, having seemingly decided the owl was looking for a fight.  
  
Mrs. Figg calmly took the letter from the owl, and tried to hand it to Uncle Vernon.  
  
"It's for you," she said.  
  
Uncle Vernon seemed torn over whether to be more frightened of the letter or Mrs. Figg, who until then he apparently had not put two and two together about.  
  
He finally snatched the letter and backed away, reading it with Aunt Petunia and Dudley looking over his shoulders. Harry couldn't believe there was someone in the magical world with anything to say to the Dursleys who was not at the party.  
  
Uncle Vernon read the letter several times, before looking up with a confused and hesitant expression.  
  
"What, exactly, is a house elf?"  
  
Hermione, who was standing next to Harry, put a hand over her mouth in horror.  
  
"No," she said between her fingers, "No one would do that, they're not wizards, they can't..."  
  
Mrs. Figg had seized the letter back, and looked up with an odd expression.  
  
"Someone's got them a house elf, all right," she said, before letting out a bitter laugh. "Says they deserve the rest after caring for Harry for so long."  
  
A lot of coughing followed this comment, much of which sounded a lot like "I'll give them..." and "deserve, indeed!"  
  
"It's not really a...a...you know, elf?" said Uncle Vernon, chucking at the idea. He seemed to go green when he realized no one else was laughing.  
  
"They're about so tall," Mrs. Figg said, flattening her hand in midair slightly above her waist, "Sort of yellow, most of them. Very prestigious, owning a house elf."  
  
Mrs. Figg seemed to be enjoying herself at the Dursley's horror, and Harry wondered whether she wasn't somehow involved in sending the owl.  
  
"We don't want it!" said Aunt Petunia, looking around the yard wildly. She pointed at Harry and said, "He can take it!"  
  
Hermione quickly made her way to the Dursleys, her arms waving frantically to get their attention.  
  
"You can't give it to Harry, Harry doesn't want a house elf!" she said, her eyes wide and somewhat manic. Harry knew Hermione too realized how unimaginably awful the Dursleys would be to a house elf after their years of shoddy treatment of him. "You have to set it free when it gets here! All you have to do is give him or her clothes, anything will do, really..."  
  
"This...this thing will not be touching any of my clothing!" said Aunt Petunia, backing away from Hermione, who sighed exasperatedly.  
  
"Just give it an old sock, like you're always giving Harry!"  
  
It was at this point chaos first threatened to take the still young day. As she spoke, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon seemed to realize exactly who Hermione was, and in an instant Aunt Petunia's head was buried in Uncle Vernon's back again.  
  
"You! You!" Uncle Vernon said, turning towards her. "The crazy one!"  
  
Most of the guests looked confused as to why anyone would call Hermione Granger crazy. Hermione couldn't suppress a laugh, which just added to Uncle Vernon's theory.  
  
"What kind of name is Hermione, anyway?" Uncle Vernon said, gathering himself up. Hermione wasn't nearly as frightening in person. "Your parents are probably the biggest freaks of them all!"  
  
"We're dentists, so sod off you fat son of a..." came a female voice from the back of the crowd, and Hermione covered her ears, apparently unable to deal with such language from her own mother.  
  
"I-I don't think it's a bad name," Dudley said, looking at Hermione from behind Aunt Petunia. Uncle Vernon threw Dudley a horrified look, and was about to say something when he was interrupted.  
  
"Ahem."  
  
Everyone, including the Dursleys, quieted as Dumbledore stepped forward.  
  
"I'm sure we can resolve this matter to everyone's satisfaction," he said to both the Dursleys and Hermione, "After proper arrangements have been made to find the house elf another home. Now is not that time."  
  
Neither Hermione nor the Dursleys looked appeased, but Dumbledore spoke with a note of finality, and they kept their further comments to themselves as the headmaster turned to Harry.  
  
"That was not the preface I would have preferred, but no matter," he said, as much to himself as to Harry. Everyone else held their breaths: surely Dumbledore was about to say something important.  
  
"I have another gift for you, Harry," Dumbledore continued, his face long. He stepped closer, trying to create some privacy in the midst of forty eager listeners. "But it is not from myself. Sturgis, if you would?"  
  
After a moment, the crowd parted, and Sturgis Podmore came forward wheeling a gleaming silver motorcycle at his side, a falsely bright smile on his face. He gave up trying when he saw Harry's expression.  
  
Harry felt the back of his eyes burning, and suddenly realized he had eaten far too much. It was, of course, Sirius's flying motorcycle. Hagrid had called it was his most prized possession.  
  
Harry could feel Dumbledore's eyes, studying him, waiting for him to begin screaming and yelling, or worse, crying, there in front of all those people. Well, he certainly wasn't going to yell, he quickly knew that much. He wondered briefly whether it would be rude to jump on it and race away, now, before he did begin to cry and people started hugging him and clasping his shoulders all over the place.  
  
"Sirius planned to give this to you today, Harry," Dumbledore said. "He wanted you to have it."  
  
Harry nodded, and looked up to find Lupin had taken a spot at his side. He also seemed to be attempting a smile, with even less success.  
  
Suddenly Uncle Vernon, still fuming at the letter clutched in his hand, waddled through the crowd to stare at the motorcycle. He looked around desperately, as if hoping someone else would claim it for themselves.  
  
"A motorbike?"  
  
"Yep," said Harry, his sad countenance dissolving into a forced grin. "It flys."  
  
Uncle Vernon's hair seemed to go grey on the spot, and his mustache went limp.  
  
"Harry will of course need to leave it at your home during the school year," Dumbledore added with a kind but sharp look at Harry.  
  
That seemed to be the final straw for Vernon Dursley. As if struck by lightning, he threw up his hands and wailed, "Aaaahhhhh!"  
  
Spinning wildly, he grabbed Kingsley Shacklebolt's shirt with one hand, pointing with the other.  
  
"It flies! It flies! Flies! The motorbike!"  
  
Kingsley's expression was mixed amusement and annoyance, but Harry had a feeling Uncle Vernon was a fat man walking on thin ice.  
  
"A flying motorbike! In my home! In my home?"  
  
"Petunia," Dumbledore said, taking Uncle Vernon by the shoulder and steering him out of the crowd. "Perhaps Vernon has had enough excitement this evening?"  
  
All three of the Dursleys seemed energized by the idea that they were allowed to leave, and quickly Uncle Vernon and Dudley found themselves failing to squeeze together out Mrs. Figg's gate. For the first time in his life, Harry was sorry to see them go. They'd been rather entertaining.  
  
Now, most of the guests slid back into their own conversations, as Harry stood next to Sirius's motorcycle. Lupin, Hermione, Ron and Ginny were standing silently next to him. Seamus was with them, too, but he didn't seem to understand why getting a flying motorcycle would be anything but exciting for Harry, and looked on the verge of asking to ride it. Harry didn't even think it would be okay to ride it himself.  
  
Fleur and Bill came over to look at it, as did Mr. Weasley, who opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He imagined Mr. Weasley probably had many strong feelings about Sirius Black's famous flying motorcycle. He had the look in his eye of someone exercising great self control.  
  
Harry turned to Lupin, more questions on the tip of his tongue than he could keep straight, when he heard a loud screech, and a snowy owl which resembled Hedwig, only larger, swooped down on him. It dropped a package identical to one Harry had received yesterday, wrapped in brown bag paper, directly into his hands. Like the other, Harry found a note instructing him to perform the "Finite Incantatum" spell on the package.  
  
"I zought you were done wiz your presents, 'Arry?" Fleur said over his shoulder.  
  
"This one just came," he said, eyeing it skeptically as Fleur took it. Something told him the identical packages were more than a coincidence.  
  
"Oh! Well, since you cannot perform ze spell..."  
  
"Don't open that!" yelled a gruff voice from nowhere.  
  
"...Finite Incantatum!"  
  
The top of the package ripped open, the underlying box flaps making short work of the paper. Again came a voice from nowhere, this time a hiss Harry had spoken with himself, in what he wished had been false nightmares.  
  
"MORSMORDRE!"  
  
Fleur dropped the box and screamed as a monstrous green shape rose from it, filling the sky above the yard.  
  
TBC.. 


End file.
